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It sets Stringer up for what ought to be an easy campaign, or at least one that is the stylistic opposite of his aborted mayoral bid, in which Stringer was running as the fashionable outsider, generating attention on the margins with digs at front-runner Christine Quinn for her closeness to Michael Bloomberg, endorsements from non-political celebrity friends and distinctively bold positioning on nerdy issues that no one else in the field bothered to spend much time addressing.

Stringer's mayoral rivals treated him like he was shooting spitballs.

His erstwhile rivals in the comptroller's race, meanwhile, have treated him like a Tammany Hall boss, with a union logo tattooed on his forearm and a New York Times endorsement on his forehead.

The thing is, in the down-ballot races, name recognition and organization are about all that matter. Most voters don't even know what it is, precisely, that the comptroller does: it's a technical job with heavy operational constraints.